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Friday, July 29, 2011

This conceptual watermelon sherbet confection is so fun, easy, and refreshing for the summer. It's my kind of dessert in the summer, just three ingredients and no baking. It's just lime and raspberry sherbet with chocolate chips for the seeds.

Serve it in any clear glassware and it will be the hit of your summer table. I found the greeen stemware at the Dollar Store last year.

I served it on this Watermelon Tablescape -- the kids and I ate it before dinner ;)...dessert first please.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

This is a easy and fun option for a summer breakfast -- make some wild watermelon waffles. These would be great for your children or when the grands visit. Just color your waffle batter and place some chocolate chips in the pink part of the watermelon and voila! I saw this on some creative person's blog -- sorry I can't remember where. I hope you are enjoying your summer!

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Hi and Welcome to Red Couch Recipes. Today's tablescape is a tribute to my Pioneer Heritage on my mother's side of the family. July 24th is known throughout Utah as Pioneer Day. State Worker's have the day off and Salt Lake City, and many other smaller communities hold Pioneer Day Celebrations which include, rodeos, parades, and dutch oven cooking.

Last summer the Littlefield side of the family held a family reunion in Tropic, Utah, my mother's birthplace. My mother's brother Heber and his wife Beverly presented us with two huge binders full of genealogy and stories of Ellis Waldo Littlefield and Ida Riding Littlefield, my grandparents, and their ancestors. It was a labor of love and a treasure trove of information.

One of the books.

Many of my mother's ancestors emigrated to Utah to escape religious persecution and to join up with the main body of Latter-Day Saints headed to Salt Lake City. In Utah, one is considered an official pioneer if one arrived in Utah before the train service was generally available in 1861.

The dinner plate is a simple brown plate. The glasses are mason jars and the napkins are bandannas. The napkin rings are metal. One of my ancestors, Christopher Lister Riding, was born in Burnley, England and married Mary Anne Hale. They emigrated to the United States in 1846 and left St. Louis in 1851, with their four children, to cross the plains to Utah. They established themselves in Southern Utah. Christopher was a master workman who traveled around Southern Utah with a two-wheeled cart and an ox selling tinware. He was sometimes known as the "Tin Man." He did metal work on the St. George Temple and St. George Tabernacle.

Maybe Christopher Lister Riding made metal napkin rings?

I set the table with American Flags because it was to America that my ancestors fled to have religious freedom.

I adorned the table with simple wildflowers from our garden -- flowers they might have seen as they crossed the plains. Waldo Littlefield and his wife Mary and his family joined the LDS faith in 1832. They moved with the main body of church members to Missouri and left when Governor Boggs issued an "extermination order"-- in essence an order to kill all LDS members. They then moved to Nauvoo, Illinois and built a home. When the Propher Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were killed by angry mobs, Waldo and his family left Nauvoo in the winter of 1846 with his wife and four children. They lived in Iowa for six years farming and outfitting other church members to cross the plains. Finally in June of 1953 Waldo and his wife Mary and their now five children left for Utah. It took them three months to cross the plains.

I honor my Pioneer Heritage with this tablescape. I honor their dedication, hard work, courage and perseverance. I honor their desire to sacrifice all they had to travel to a place where they could worship God as they pleased.

I heard this poem for the first time in at our Church's General Conference this April. It really touched me and want to pass it along to you; it points out the awesome responsibility of parenting.﻿

A few weeks ago our family went to Joe's Valley, a favorite place to do a bit of mild cliff jumping. On the way there, and then again on departing we found some sheep and some lambs who had wandered away from the fold; I thought of the poem, "The Echo" when I saw them wandering.

A sheep farmer had been moving his sheep from one field to another; they had got lost and were on the road. As we approached them to take a picture, they would speed up as soon as we got close. This sheep had led its lambs astray.

The water level is very high at Joe's Valley this year; it will lower throughout the summer as it is drained for irrigation purposes.

Some pictures of my lambs jumping in. The water was so cold when I first jumped in that I panicked a bit!

These are actually very low and fun to jump off. No, I am not a sheep leading my lambs astray.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Today I am Joining La at A Musing Potpourri for her Ice Cream Social. I am excited to break out my ice cream machine and try some of the rest of the ice cream recipes and thanks for hosting La.

This recipe for gelato is tangy deliciousness enrobed in creamy splendor; it brought the taste of Italy right to my kitchen. I hope you will try it and it will transport you to Italy as you are tasting it. I have loved my other entries for Lemon Week, but this one is my favorite.

Lemon Lime Gelato RecipeSource: Adapted from a recipe from Taste of Home

Directions
In a small heavy saucepan, heat milk to 175°; stir in sugar until dissolved. Whisk a small amount of hot mixture into egg yolks. Return egg mixture to the pan, whisking constantly. Add lemon peel. Cook and stir over low heat until mixture reaches at least 160° and coats the back of a metal spoon.

Remove from the heat; strain. Stir in lemon juice. Cool quickly by placing pan in a bowl of ice water; stir for 2 minutes. Stir in cream. Cover and refrigerate for several hours or overnight.

Fill cylinder of ice cream freezer with lemon lime sorbet mix; freeze according to manufacturer's instructions. At this point, depending on your ice cream freezer you can either enjoy right away refreeze it to achieve more firmness. If you choose to refreeze, transfer to a freezer container, such as a Pyrex bowl or Tupperware container with lid.; freeze for 2-4 hours before serving. Yield: 1-1/2 quarts.

Friday, July 15, 2011

I made this lemony dream of a pie for a family picnic held yesterday. The pie was tart with lemony goodness tempered with just a bit of cream -- just my kind of dessert for a warm summer day. Just for the record, anything that contains sweetened condensed milk is just fine with me.

Recipe for Lemon Velvet Cream Pie

Source: November 2010 Better Homes and Garden Magazine

Pie Crust -- I made a Graham Cracker Crust and used a springform pan.

1 tablespoon unflavored gelatin (Knox -- near the Jell-O section)

2 tablespoons cold water

6 egg yolks

1-1/2 (14 ounces) cans sweetened condensed milk (2 cups)

1/4 cup whipping cream

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup fresh lemon juice (It took about 3 lemons)

Whipped Cream for garnish -- I piped it using a large star tip

Lemon slivers for garnish

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a small bowl soften gelatin for 5 minutes. Heat in microwave for about 14 seconds and set aside. The gelatin will help so that the pie won't sink while baking.

3. In a large bowl, combine egg yolks, and sweetened condensed milk. With an electric mixer, beat on high speed 2 -3 minutes until well combined. Beat in gelatin, whipping cream, and salt on low speed. Add lemon juice and beat on low speed for 30 seconds. Pour mixture into prepared pie crust.

4. Bake 22- 25 minutes or until center of pie looks set when gently shaken; cool on wire rack for 1 hour. Cover loosely and refrigerate at least 2 hours.

5. Top with whipping cream and lemon slivers.

As I was removing the pie from the cakestand, I dropped the pie on the table! Not to worry, I still brought the pie to the picnic! When you have lemons, make lemonade!

You might want to check out a few of my other lemon recipes. Just click the title or look on my sidebar and click on "Citrus" in the archives.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

I understand some you have been having extremely warm weather; here in Utah, we have had rain and cool weather. In fact it rained while I was setting up this table.

I also have yellow bubble glasses on the table tonight. Here's a view through the lemon yellow glass.

A napkin view....

A view of the stack...and a peak, albeit not very good, of my new silverware from World Market. I was thrilled to go to one when we were in Idaho last week. When I was first out of college I used to frequent a Cost Plus to furnish my cupboards -- one dish a week! I love World Market!

A picture of the placesetting...I bought the lemon/pear salad plates for my birthday last year. I received the yellow dinner plates for my birthday this year.

A view of the whole table.

I hope you enjoyed my Lemon Love Tablescapes and hope you will drop by for more posts during lemon week.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Who doesn't love the smell of lemons while grating or juicing them? Like many of you, I have a love affair with lemons. They are tangy, zesty, and so vibrantly colored.; they brighten up any drink or dish. Growing up, we seldom had fresh lemons around the home -- well, we did have lemons in the form of bottled juice. While living in California, I was delighted to see lemons just weighing down a tree at the home of my husband's Uncle Bill. To have fresh lemons off a tree was a Wisconsin's girl's true delight!

My lemon thyme on my back deck. You just have to love its scent and taste.

When I lived in Lindon, Utah, Tonya Lemone, a woman from my church, had a store called Perennial Garden in Orem. As a part of her business, she would hold "teas" in her beautiful backyard. She had the most amazing backyard full of produce and two lovely buildings; one was a fanciful garden shed and the other was a cottage. She generously opened up her backyard for church events, such as Relief Society Homemaking Meetings and wedding receptions. She even had a Maypole -- can you say jealous? At these teas, her signature cookie was a Lemon Thyme Cookie. I believe she sold packets of dried Lemon Thyme at her lovely little store.

This is my version adapted from Tonya's recipe for Lemon Thyme Cookies. Tonya's was more of a purist; I added the lemon juice, lemon rind, and ground ginger.

1 cup butter -- Do not use margarine; Tonya would not approve.

1-1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

2-3/4 cups flour

4 teaspoons Lemon Thyme -- I used fresh.

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon grated fresh lemon rind
1 teaspoon ground ginger

Cream butter and sugar, then cream in eggs. To the creamed mixture, add flour, lemon thyme, lemon juice and lemon rind. Shape into tablespoon-sized balls and roll in sugar. Flatten slightly with the bottom of a glass. Place on cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.

Notes: The cookie dough will be quite moist. The cookies when baked will be flat, but not especially crisp. The recipe yields around 30 cookies.

Hope you drop by all week for Lemon Weekwhere a good dose of lemon will brighten and refresh your day.

Engageya

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About Me

Come have a seat and rest awhile at my Red Couch where fun family food is served and enjoyed! It's my, now 14 year old daughter's fault I have a blog. I helped her set up her food blog and had so much fun I started my own. Read more about me in my "About Me" tab.